Distracting with movies is something I did a lot too....good idea & good self-care.

I can say that 10 years out of that 33 year marriage have been the best years of my life. It has been an awesome journey learning who & what I really am. Even though I was a career professional computer design engineer for 15 years of that time after getting my degree, I still lost who I really was because everything was still based on his likes when it came to every day things.....including food. Lol the first thing I did at my new farm was to go shopping & buy foods that only I liked. Gave MY KITCHEN a huge YES!!!!! after getting it all stocked.

For me there was a huge learning curve as I had never lived alone before, then, I lived around parents & a H who had serious communication problems. I had learned to continually repeat myself to make sure they got what I was saying & even though I did ok in my career, I always thought the communication problem was mine....it really wasn't but I did have to learn how to communicate with normal people ( it was so much easier).....the other problem was learning to connect to even friends with an emotional connection. 54 years of living with people incapable of emotionally connecting & again I thought that was my issue also until it started happening naturally with the normal people I am now around.

Had so much to learn in the last half of my life but it has been the most rewarding time of my life including connecting with my daughter in a way that seemed impossible in the circumstances we lived in.

I'm sure you will find the situation you are now in to be a great relief the more used to it you get.

After I left I still had things he did hit me & one huge one was with the IRS & what he had supposedly unknowingly done with MY inheritance....because of his typical know it all attitude that refused to double check & verify what he did was correct....turned into a HUGE mess that I ended up sorting through & handling myself though he ended up paying for his mistake with retirement money he didn't want to take but was the only possible money to pay it.

Then came the foreclosure on the house my name is still on the loan because he couldn't qualify on his own to refinance & the house was upside down for selling....so I am still haunted by him every so often over these 10 years. Lol what has saved both of us is that I moved 2100 miles away. He never communicated when we were married. Nothing has changed.

Challenges may continue but that peace of being away allows for much wiser ways of dealing with the things than when they are in the same house.

Be patient....I'm sure you will definitely grow to love your new found freedom life